The Android Invasion

The Doctor and Sarah arrive in a wooded patch of the English countryside in time to see a UNIT solider fall to his death from a cliff. Shortly after they are attacked by technicians in protective suits with guns built into their figertips. Sarah recognizes the nearby village as Devsham, a place she once visited on a story connected to the local space defence station, a village where everybody seems to be controlled by a mysterious force. The Doctor and Sarah encounter Benton and Harry Sullivan at the station but they are both acting as if their old friends are criminals and attempt to shoot them on site. Astronaut Guy Crayford is working with a race of creatures known as the Kraals in their attempt to invade Earth by landing a speahead force of android replicas on Earth, and the village is a testing ground on their home planet where radiation is on the rise. The Doctor and Sarah make their escape attempt to get back to Earth ahead of the Kraals and their android duplicates but find that their friends are already being replaced, opening the way for the Kraal leader, Styggron, and his race to claim the planet as their own.

More brilliance from this era of the show. Nasty porcine aliens in the form of the Kraals, all the UNIT folks except for the Brigadier, and a handy surprise separation from the TARDIS. A script provided by Dalek creator Terry Nation proves that his Doctor Who skills range beyond the Daleks and the Voord (for those who are not familiar with his work on Blakes 7). And again, the incredible dynamic between Tom Baker's fourth Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane Smith makes all of their scenes a delight to watch. The entire setup of the first half of the story evokes memories of the parallel universe of Inferno with the Doctor's friends all existing in darker states, turning against him and treating him like the enemy. Those feelings do, however, fall away when the plot is exposed.

Weak points? Maybe the bit where Colonel Faraday is thrown in as a last ditch replacement for the Brigadier. It's so obvious that the lines were written for Nicholas Courtney, but delivered by another actor they don't sound right. And the bit where Sarah and the Doctor are chased by tracker dogs... are those androids too?

It's nice to see Harry back, even for such a short time. And Mr Benton, for the last time ever. Crayford was a bit of a fool, totally taken in by the Kraals and used for their plans of conquest. As aliens the Kraals are nasty nasty things, even beyond what they look like. Styggron creates a virus to kill everyone on Earth to make room for his people, but it's an interesting dynaic between the Kraals themselves; they're actually friendly with each other as exchanges between Styggron and Chedaki are testament.

Ah the Doctor. A new coat. And on location it sounds as if Tom Baker had a sore throat. He gets the hell beaten out of him by his own android double, which is always a bit disturbing even if in this case it looks like self-abuse. Not THAT kind of self-abuse; this is a children's programme.

NEXT EPISODE : THE BRAIN OF MORBIUS